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The Universal Law You're Fighting Against
The entire universe is built on duality. Just as you cannot have day without night, up without down, or good without evil, you cannot have success without failure. It's not possible.
The process of success IS failure. Until you become successful. But up until that breakthrough point, it's a sequence of progressive failures that teach you what works and what doesn't.
This is why former IBM President Thomas Watson famously once said: "The key to success is massive failure."
If you're only moderately succeeding, it's because you likely aren't doing enough. And you aren't growing. You're playing it safe. Staying in your comfort zone. Avoiding the very experiences that would accelerate your growth.
When you try to skip failure, you're fighting against a fundamental law of progress. Every breakthrough requires breaking through something. Every innovation comes from trying approaches that don't work. Until you find the one that does.
The Lesson That Changed Everything
My father taught me this principle when I was eight years old on the ski slopes. I had skied on my own all day and felt proud of my accomplishment. At the end of the day, I ran up to him excited to report: "Dad, I skied by myself all day and didn't fall down once!"
He looked at me flatly and said, "Well, then you didn't get any better."
Sensing my disappointment, he explained: "Look, if you're going to get better, you have to push yourself. If you push yourself, you're going to fall. If you're not falling, you're not pushing. Falling is part of getting better."
That lesson changed how I approached everything in business. Aand in life. When you're not failing, you're not growing. And when you're not growing, you're dying.
Companies that avoid all risk, entrepreneurs who wait until they're certain, and business owners who play it safe consistently get outpaced by competitors willing to fail fast and learn faster.
What's Really Holding You Back
The only thing likely standing between you and your potential isn't your competition, your market, or your resources. It's your fear of failure.
Fear keeps you from starting that business. Fear makes you delay launching that product. Fear convinces you to gather more data instead of getting real market feedback. Fear whispers that you're not ready, not qualified, not experienced enough.
But here's what I know for certain: the only thing holding you back from realizing your potential and accomplishing any goal your mind can conceive is fear.
When you learn to turn fear into fuel, something you pursue rather than avoid, your potential explodes. No one can stop someone who has eliminated the fear of failure. You become forever unstoppable.
The successful entrepreneurs I've mentored and studied all share this trait: they celebrate failures because they know each failure brings them closer to breakthrough. They understand that avoiding failure means avoiding growth.
Stop trying to avoid failure. Start pursuing it with passion and purpose. When you fall or fail, celebrate it. You've grown and you've given the success pendulum a push that will soon swing back in your favor.
What's Next?
The fear of failure destroys more potential than actual failure ever could. That's exactly what we tackle in HERO'S JOURNEY. Developing the audacious courage to turn fear into your greatest asset. It's a year-long leadership development experience for those ready to embrace heroic leadership. Find out more here.
Every weekday morning, I also send strategic insights to over 350,000 business leaders through ☕DarrenDaily. Join Us and start each day with the mindset that turns obstacles into opportunities.